On The Home Front

Blaeck Clegge - the Chief Diva and Luminary of the Liberationist Faction - has emerged from his hidey-hole today, I hear. This is an uncommon phenomenon, but since we've recently been blessed with the rare sight of the Northern Lights in our neck of the woods, we shouldn't be too surprised - it had to happen sometime...

Apparently, in a valiant bid to clear up the Gaping Void Of Infinite Debt that envelops the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria, he's suggested a new Bright And Shining Initiative. Hooray for Cleggo and the Liberationists! Pass the muesli and the magic mushrooms, please. Pardon my wind.

This newly-dug nugget of intellectual splendour is the result of a thirty thousand year investigation (at taxpayers' expense, naturally) by Experts who are In The Know. It's a proposed tax on the Big Houses of the Opulent. It's not fair, he petulantly sniffs, that the impoverished hovel-dwellers should pay the same as the Wealthy and the Privileged for the privilege of being fleeced through taxes, regulated and patronised in order to scratch an existence in this vale of tears.

Well, of course, this Cat does have some sense of fairness himself. On the face of it, it all sounds quite reasonable and plausible; the Loaded Few should contribute according to their vast resources. It's illogical that wealthy earls should receive the same benefits to bring up their mewling and puking progeny as lowly herders - and yet they do; it's equally absurd that they should proportionally suffer less in their pockets than their less fortunate fellows.

But I foresee some difficulties. It's so very sad.

For a start, Cleggo isn't short of a few zillion groats himself. Is he a turkey (which hasn't been discovered yet) voting for Christmas? Or have he and his opulent oligarch chums already devised some way of circumventing the tax on their own numerous humungous mansions?

I can't imagine Caedmeron and his Tree Party will be too thrilled at either the idea or principle behind it either. It'll die a thousand horrible deaths - just like Cleggo's Liberationist Faction's prospects in the next Election..

And since all of the Kingdom's politico factions are controlled and directed by the Wealthy and the Privileged in the first place, your Moggy has some difficulty imagining them queuing up to pay their dues. They'd sooner drive out the peasants into the woods and fields and temporarily occupy their smelly hovels,  leaving their own homes empty at Tax Collection Time..